1

Spintronics: Fundamentals and Applications.

Overview:

The spin‐electronics also called Spintronics, where the spin of an electron is controlled
by an external magnetic field and polarize the electrons. These polarized electrons are used to
control the electric current. The goal of Spintronics is to develop a semiconductor that can
manipulate the magnetism of an electron. Once we add the spin degree of freedom to
electronics, it will provide significant versatility and functionality to future electronic products.
Magnetic spin properties of electrons are used in many applications such as magnetic memory,
magnetic recording (read, write heads), etc. [1]

The realization of semiconductors that are ferromagnetic above room temperature will
potentially lead to a new generation of Spintronic devices with revolutionary electrical and
optical properties. The field of Spintronics was born in the late 1980s with the discovery of the
"giant magnetoresistance effect”. The giant magnetoresistance (GMR) effect occurs when a
magnetic field is used to align the spin of electrons in the material, inducing a large change in the
resistance of a material. A new generation of miniature electronic devices like computer chips,
light‐emitting devices for displays, and sensors to detect radiation, air pollutants, light and
magnetic fields are possible with the new generation of Spintronic materials. [1]

In electronic devices, information is stored and transmitted by the flow of electricity in

the form of negatively charged subatomic particles called electrons. The zeroes and ones of
computer binary code are represented by the presence or absence of electrons within a
semiconductor or other material. In Spintronics, information is stored and transmitted using
another property of electrons called spin. Spin is the intrinsic angular momentum of an electron,
each electron acts like a tiny bar magnet, like a compass needle, that points either up or down to
represent the spin of an electron. Electrons moving through a nonmagnetic material normally
have random spins, so the net effect is zero. External magnetic fields can be applied so that
the spins are aligned (all up or all down), allowing a new way to store binary data in the form of
one’s (all spins up) and zeroes (all spins down). The effect was first discovered in a device made
of multiple layers of electrically conducting materials: alternating magnetic and nonmagnetic
layers. The device was known as a "spin valve" because when a magnetic field was applied to
the device, the spin of its electrons went from all up to all down, changing its resistance so
 2

that the device acted like a valve to increase or decrease the flow of electrical current, called
Spin
Valves.[1]

Figure: 1. Spins can arrange themselves in a variety of ways that are important for
Spintronics devices. They can be completely random, with their spins pointing in
every possible direction and located throughout a material in no particular order
(upper left). Or these randomly located spins can all point in the same direction, called
spin alignment (upper right). In solid state materials, the spins might be located in an
orderly fashion on a crystal lattice (lower left) forming a nonmagnetic material. Or the
spins may be
on a lattice and be aligned as in a magnetic material
(lower right). [2]

Why Spintronics?

The miniaturization of microelectronic components by roughly a factor of 40 has taken

place from the early days of integrated circuits, starting around 1970. Over this time,
microelectronics has advanced from the first integrated circuits to present day computer chips
containing 100 million transistors. It is now well recognized that further shrinking of the
physical size of semiconductor electronics will soon approach a fundamental barrier. The
 3
fundamental physical laws that govern the behavior of transistors will preclude them from being
shrunk any further and packed in even greater number on computer chips. The continual
shrinking of transistors will result in various problems related to electric current leakage, power
consumption and heat. [3]

On the other hand, miniaturization of semiconductor electronic devices is making device

engineers and physicists feel the looming presence of quantum mechanics – a brilliant physics
concept developed in the last century – where counterintuitive ideas such as wavelike
behavior, is more dominant for ‘particles’ such as the electron. Electron spin is, after all, a
quantum phenomenon. Many experts agree that Spintronics, combined with nanotechnology
would offer the best possible solution to the problems associated with miniaturization
mentioned above. Nanoscience and nanotechnology involve the study of extremely tiny
devices and related phenomena on a spatial scale of less than one‐ thousandth the diameter of a
human hair or roughly half the diameter of a DNA molecule. [3]

Application
The first scheme of Spintronics device based on the metal oxide semiconductor
technology was the first field effect spin transistor proposed in 1989 by Suprio Datta and
Biswajit Das of Purdue University. In their device, a structure made from indium–
aluminum‐arsenide and Indium‐gallium‐ arsenide provides a channel for two dimensional
electron transport between two ferromagnetic electrodes. One electrode acts as an emitter and
the other as a collector. The emitter emits electrons with their spins oriented along the direction
of electrodes magnetization, while the collector acts as a spin filter and accepts electrons with
the same spin only. In the absence of any change to the spins during transport, every emitted
electron enters the collector. [1] This device is explained in further detail under the topic of spin
transistors.
 4

Figure: 2. Datta‐Das spin transistor was the first Spintronic device to be proposed for
fabrication in a metal‐oxide‐ semiconductor geometry familiar in conventional microelectronics.
An electrode made of a ferromagnetic material (purple) emits spin‐aligned electrons (red
spheres), which pass through a narrow channel (blue) controlled by the gate electrode (gold) and
are collected by another ferromagnetic electrode (top). With the gate voltage off, the aligned
spins pass through the channel and are collected at the other side (middle). With the gate voltage
on, the field produces magnetic interaction that causes the spins to precess, like spinning tops in
a gravity field. If the spins are not aligned with the direction of magnetization of the collector, no
current can pass. In this way, the emitter‐ collector current is modulated by the gate electrode.
As yet, no convincingly successful application of this proposal has been demonstrated. [2]

Spintronic devices:

Recording devices, such as computer hard disks, already employ the unique
properties of magnetic materials. Data are recorded and stored as tiny areas of magnetized iron
or chromium oxides. A “read head” can read this information by detecting minute changes in the
magnetic field as the disk rotates underneath it. This induces changes in the head’s electrical
resistance – also known as magnetoresistance. Spintronic devices, also known as
magnetoelectronics, are expected to become the ideal memory media for computing and main
operating media for future quantum computing. The first
 5

widely acknowledged breakthrough in Spintronics was the use of GMR, used in read heads of
most hard drives already mentioned above. A “popular” device that exploits the Spintronics is,
for example, the Apple iPod 60 GB. Measuring a little more than half an inch in thickness, this
pocket filling device has a Spintronics based “read head”! [3]

Recent discovery of Tunneling Magnetoresistance (TMR) has led to the idea of a

magnetic tunnel junction that has been utilized for the MRAM (Magnetic Random Access
Memory). Here, one has two magnetic layers separated by an insulating metal‐oxide layer.
Electrons are able to tunnel from one layer to the other only when magnetizations of the
layers are aligned in the same direction. The resistance is otherwise very high, in fact, 1000
times higher than in the standard GMR devices, known as “spin valves”. Spintronic devices,
combining the advantages of magnetic materials and semiconductors, are expected to be fast,
non‐volatile and consume less power. They are smaller than 100 nanometers in size, more
versatile and more robust than the conventional ones making up silicon chips and circuit
elements. The potential market is expected to be worth hundreds of billions of dollars a year. [3]

Semiconductor Spintronics:

In spite of the rapid advances in metal‐based Spintronics devices (such as GMR devices),
a major focus for researchers has been to find novel ways to generate and utilize spin‐polarized
currents in semiconductors. These include the investigation of spin‐transport in semiconductors
and the exploration of possibilities for making semiconductors function as spin polarizers and
spin valves. This is important because semiconductor‐based Spintronics devices can easily be
integrated with traditional semiconductor technology; they also can serve as
multi‐functional devices. Further, spins in
 6

semiconductors can be more easily manipulated and controlled. Visionaries claim that a merger
of electronics, photonics, and magnetics will provide novel spin‐based multifunctional devices
such as spin‐FETs (field‐effect transistors), spin‐LEDs (light‐emitting diodes), spin‐RTDs
(resonant tunneling devices), optical switches operating at terahertz frequencies, modulators,
quantum computation, etc., just to name a few. The progress in these developments of course,
crucially depends on our understanding and control of the spin degrees of freedom in
semiconductors, semiconductor heterostructures, and ferromagnets. [3]

Spin transistor:

The basic idea of a spin transistor, as proposed by Suprio Datta and Biswajit Das
(Purdue University, USA) is to control the spin orientation by applying a gate voltage. A
spin‐FET, as depicted below, consists of ferromagnetic electrodes and a semiconductor channel
that contains a layer of electrons and a gate electrode attached to the semiconductor. The source
and drain electrodes are ferromagnetic (FM) metals. [3]

Figure: 3 Datta‐Das spin

Transistor.

The spin‐polarized electrons are injected from the FM source electrode (FM1), and after
entering the semiconductor channel they begin to rotate. The rotation is caused by an effect due
to “spin‐orbit coupling” that occurs when electrons move through the semiconductor crystal in
the presence of an electric field. The rotation can be controlled, in principle, by an applied
electric field through the gate electrode. If the spin orientation of the electron channel is aligned
to the FM drain electrode, electrons are able to flow into the FM drain electrode. However, if the
spin orientation is flipped in the electron layer (as in the figure above), electrons cannot enter
the drain electrode (FM2). In this way, with the gate electrode the rotation of the electron spin
can be controlled. Therefore, in a spin‐FET the current
 7

flow is modified by the spin precession angle. Since the spin‐FET concept was published in
1990, there has been a world‐wide effort to develop such a transistor. The success of such a
project crucially depends on efficient injection of spin currents from a ferromagnetic metal into
a semiconductor, a seemingly formidable task. Intense research is under way to circumvent this
problem by using (Ferro) magnetic semiconductors such as GaMnAs. [3]

Quantum dots: Spin‐based computers:

Modern nanofabrication techniques and materials engineering have reached a level

where it is now possible to fabricate advanced semiconductor devices at atomic scales. The most
remarkable ones are the ‘quantum dots’ in which electron motion is quantized along all
directions and conducting electrons are confined within the nanometer distances.[4] The dots
contain typically one to several hundred electrons and experiments have shown effective control
over both the charge and spin degree of freedom of these confined electrons. Quantum dots have
been found to be very useful as electronic and optical devices such as the quantum‐dot laser,
memory chips, and in quantum cryptography, quantum computer, etc. It has been proposed
that the spin of an electron confined to quantum dots can be used as quantum bits and an array
of quantum dots could serve as a quantum computer. In principle, a computer that processes the
quantum states instead of conventional classical information will be able to solve problems for
which there is no efficient classical algorithm. Quantum operations in the quantum dots would
be possible by coupling electron spins in neighboring quantum dots. Fundamental understanding
of the role of electron spins in quantum‐confined structures is crucial in this effort, and my
research group is actively involved in this endeavor. [3]

Electron (spin) transport in DNA:

Why DNA? – As mentioned above, in the face of continued miniaturization of

components and circuitry in microelectronics, conventional semiconductor microelectronics is
rapidly approaching its useful miniaturization limits due to some fundamental limitations of
large‐scale photolithography and the expected failure of semiconductor physics in
nanometer‐scale components. For an alternative approach, one might look in nature, in
particular in biology, where biological molecules are known to self‐assemble with nanometer
scale resolution and possess some unique qualities that might be crucial for nanoscale
fabrication: these include

(I) highly effective molecular recognition processes.

(ii) Self‐assembly processes coupled to mechanisms that are responsible for proof‐reading
during the construction process.

(iii) Billions of years of evolution that has optimized the efficient assembly processes.

DNA, the molecule of life is particularly attractive in this respect. In humans, the DNA molecule
consists of two ribbon‐like strands (double helix) that wrap around each other, resembling a
twisted ladder. [3]
 8

Figure: 4 A diagram of the general structure of DNA. It shows the famous overall double
helix. And it shows the four bases (A, T, G and C) ‐‐ which are the "information". At each
rung along the DNA ladder is a base pair. Each pair is either A with T or G with C; that is, one
strand precisely determines the other strand ‐‐ and that indeed is the key to how DNA replicates.

The steps of the ladder are made of four bases A (adenine), T (thymine), G (guanine) and C
(cytosine). Bases of DNA come as a pair and always ‘A’ pairs with ‘T’ and ‘G’ with ‘C’. Base
pairs are held together by hydrogen bonds. The A‐T pair has two hydrogen bonds while the
G‐C pair contains three hydrogen bonds. The sugar‐phosphate backbones form the sides of
the ladder. Double‐stranded DNA has a diameter of ~2nm and a helical pitch of 10.5 bases
with 0.34 nm separation of the plane in which adjacent base pairs are located. Each phosphate
group in the sugar‐phosphate backbone of the DNA carries a negative charge. In fact, the DNA
double helix is one of the most highly‐charged polymers with a base charge density of one
charge per 0.17 nm. In recent years, electronic transport through DNA has been the subject of
intense research activity. The reason is twofold: understanding of charge migration
 9

in DNA is important because of its biological implications, in particular, for oxidative damage
and repair of DNA and the other is the potential application of DNA as an important part in
molecular electronics. [3]

Figure: 5 Structure of DNA with dimensions.

Compared to semiconductor materials, electron transport in DNA would be faster because

of less scattering events which will lead to longer spin lifetime. This would be particularly
useful for spin transport in DNA. It is already established that electron transfer along DNA
occurs on length scales of up to a few nanometers. The conductivity of DNA on larger length
scales has been an active area of research study because here the goal is to manipulate DNA in
the atomic scale and make DNA devices using currently available techniques. Electronic
properties of DNA, the charge and also the spin transport in DNA are topics of major
activity in my research group. [3]

Expectation for the future:

Spintronics is one of the most challenging and fascinating areas in nanotechnology. Its
impact is felt both in fundamental scientific research and industrial applications. To cope with its
rapid progress in pure and applied science, coordinated efforts by researchers from diverse
fields including physics,
 10

chemistry, biology, materials science and engineering are absolutely necessary. From today’s read
heads to quantum information processing in the future, the electron spin has exhibited the
limitless potential to impact our lives as we look through the magical quantum world at the
nanoscale, a world that is not much different from an Alice‐in‐wonderland world that plays by its
own rules. We are yet to understand fully most of those rules, but we are making significant
progress through research in Spintronics. [5]

Conclusion:

The GMR is the background to switch from the “traditional” electronic to the spin
based electronics. Spintronic has great potentiality for applications and it is the beginning of its
journey. The realization of semiconductors that are ferromagnetic above room temperature will
potentially lead to a new generation of spintronic devices with revolutionary electrical and optical
properties. [6]

References:

1‐R. Raju, K.V. Rao, U. Waghmare and C. Rout Honeywell Technology Solutions,
Bangalore JNCASR, Bangalore, Stockholm University, Sweden, 22nd Feb. 2008

2‐ Sarma, Sankar Das. “Spintronics: A new class of device based on the quantum of electron
spin, rather than on charge, may yield the next generation of microelectronics.” American
Scientist, Volume 89. Published in 2001 November–December. Page 516‐523.

3‐ Chakraborty, Tapash. “Electronics on a Spin” Department of Physics and Astronomy

University of
Manitoba Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
http://www.physics.umanitoba.ca/~tapash/

4‐ Quantum Dots, by T. Chakraborty (Elsevier, Amsterdam

1999).

5- Nanoculture – Implications of the New Technoscience – edited by N. Katherine Hayles

(Intellect Books,
2004)
.

6‐ Master in Nanoscience Low Dimensional Systems Lectures by A. Rubio and

N. Zabala